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Looking at my calendar, I can’t help but wonder how fast and far this year 2016 has gone. We are already in the 6th day of January- We should actually start counting down to 2017 already. As a tradition at the beginning of a new year: Prophets, Economists, Social commentators and Policy makers predict on the economy, sociopolitical and all-wise state of the nation for the year. Almost always accompanied with doom messages (they actually sell better). The bottom-line messages for the year 2016 is hovering on a bleak economy partly caused by the decline in oil prices and the economic recession caused by the past administration and the just-starting new government.

As a result of this, the populace has been ‘promised’ with job cuts, stringent and belt-tightening measures by the government to forestall a total breakdown of the economy. Panic everywhere! Where do we stand in all of this? Despite this, Nigeria is ranked as the fastest growing African economy owing to its human capital. The Human Resources accounts for its strength, not oil! Any business started in Nigeria that can succeed will probably succeed anywhere in the world.

A story is said of two young men who went to the village Chief priest to consult on their future. One was told he would become a king and get so wealthy while the other was told he will be so poor and a servant. The fellow who was promised wealth took to the streets;jubilated, gallivanted and lived recklessly (at least he will be rich after all) while the other one began to work hard, toiled day and night at least to cushion the effect of his impending poverty. The Years went by, the one that was prophesied to be poor became so wealthy that he was elected the king while the one who was told he would be wealthy became the poor servant due to his wasteful lifestyle.

I will highlight a few points in which you can take the paddle and control the tide in your favour this year.

Identify Opportunities and take advantage FAST: As a result of less concentration of income in the oil sector, a lot of opportunities will spring up. A lot of startups were created in the past years as a result of this opportunities, they identified what we ignored and are making a difference with them. A lot actually have existed before now but you’ve been blind to them. Look more closely to things that add value to others and you can offer at a cost. Get a business registered and boom!

Get better: An MTN advert started sometimes in 2014 that “Leave Good behind”. Using the same approach year in year out will bring monotony in duty and action. Get better at what you do, the services you render and how you carry out activities. Hire consultancy firms to help reorganize your businesses, attend workshops and conferences to be better at what you do because the competition will be much more.

Hope for the best, Expect the worst: Have contingency plans. If Plan A doesn’t work out, move on to plan B without making a fuss about it. A lot of job cuts are ongoing, and would still go on. Start sending your CV out already, start preparing that business plan, start saving up so you don’t get caught unprepared.

Build your network and regularly keep in touch: A saying says “Your network is your net-worth”. Your first customers in any business are probably referred to by people you already know. Relevant networking is key.

Be ready to learn and unlearn: Truth is some accountants will end up taking sales job (that is already happening). You might need to diversify on what you already know and at the same time unlearn some wrong perceptions. You need knowledge on current trends and know exactly which is needed to adapt to.

I believe with this you are ready to sharpen your reality and make 2016 your most profiting one.

Damilola Cole

He is an Accountant. He is the Managing Consultant at DD Oil and Gas Consults, A firm with specialty in the retail downstream sector. You can engage him on twitter @dami_cole

Its been a pretty long time i have posted and this has been due to re-branding and adjustment issues. I promise i won’t be far from you guys.

I am pleased to inform you my frequent readers of a 31day challenge starting December 1st 2015. It would include posts from me and a few guests on topical issues throughout the month. This posts promise to cast a reflection on the concluding year and starting the new year with a bang.

I remember during the third semester of my MBA program I studied a course called “Organizational Leadership & Change”, I loved the course a lot and I was able to point fingers at people in my office as I read different chapters but as they say ‘it is always easy to see people’s fault but tougher to see yours’.

A topic that caught my attention in the course work, the topic emphasized on various reactions to change and I thought to myself ‘I’m an agent of change mehnnnn (sic)”, “I love change”, “I’m change personified”. This was until I met ‘change’ starring at me in the face and my reactions was so hilarious I then recalled all I read in the course, so I just want to share some lessons I learnt during the period of change in my organization.

Sit back relax and enjoy the story.

On the 13th of August, a few of us at my workplace got called into the Manager’s office to receive letters and I can picture everyone had it on their mind “mehnnnn my promotion letter is here” . But to our greatest surprise we were been redeployed to other duties/department, initially I was like “this cannot be possible” while some people were dancing for joy; some others were crying and some people started searching for numbers of their contact persons at the head office loolllll (OGAs at the top).

I got my letter, looked at it and was like “hmmmmm God has a reason for everything but I was not too happy”. In fact after I got the letter I remembered the MBA course on “Organizational Leadership & Change” and I said to myself “babe cheer up, aren’t you are a change agent? then it became clear to me it is very easy to look out the window and judge people when you are not in their shoes.

I went through four stages before I could accept the change, funny enough these were the same thing we learnt in class, scoffed at and say nah it can’t be me am a change agent.

STAGE 1- DENIAL

I was in denial for almost 5 hours, I was hoping a mistake was made, maybe my department was not meant to be affected, maybe if I pray something will happen, I had so many maybes running through my head and what did I achieve by the maybes, pounding headaches and unnecessary anger, after a while I said to myself. This takes us to the next stage.

STAGE 2- COMING IN TERMS WITH CHANGE

The next day I started accepting the change, then my thoughts changed to well maybe I will like the new duty, maybe this is an open door for me, maybe am coming here to fulfill a particular aspect of God’s plan for me, lol we can see that the maybes still continue which means the headache and anger were still in me but reducing, little by little the anger started fading.

STAGE 3- ACCEPTANCE

Before Friday, I noticed a difference in me I started feeling better even enjoying the idea of the change, by the time I went to meet the person handing over to me and showed a little of her duties I smiled to myself and thought “ahn ahn why u wan come kill yourself since”. Can you imagine I’m being moved to a place I never thought I would enjoy but am having a great time here and am actually glad we were re-shuffled.

So what is the moral lesson in the entire story u might ask (lol), change at first may not look too good or may not be as you planned but you only achieve your goals and desire when you learn to embrace change, move forward and look back at the old and be glad you left it behind.

I know better now how to handle change, change may not come only at work but it cuts across all aspects of our lives, we can experience changes in our relationships, spouses, and friends.

We all have gone through

Every stage of our life comes with changes to contend with and the earlier we learn to embrace change the easier it will be for us to move forward.

My view on news that made headlines this week:
It was disheartening going through the headlines this week, all news seems to be really annoying and infuriating. They include:
The 237 kidnapped Nigerian girls: Today marks 67 days since the kidnap of some girls from Chibok, Borno state. They had sat for an examination and ended up being kidnapped by the ferocious Boko Haram sect. The government keeps mud-slinging and playing politics with the lives of their citizens. The primary role of government is the security of lives and property.
Ekiti elections: The political class in Nigeria has always being characterized by its intrigues and antics. Every aspirant irrespective of his level of education goes haywire and beserk during the electioneering process. Incidences of assault, accusations and counter-accusations have been the order of the day. Yet the citizens don’t learn lesson, they trade votes for foodstuffs, money and other materials. The government of the day uses security apparatus to molest its oppositions.
Mohammed Abacha and N432bn charge acquittal: During the week, the son of the late Head of State – Sanni Abacha had charges dropped against him in respect of the loot. His purported gubernatorial ambition at Kano is enough reason for this. This shows the high level of commitment of the government towards fighting corruption.
Bode- George’s wife named as Director-general of NDLEA : I saw the news as a joke at first but on confirmation I was distraught. She is the wife of an ex-convict who was charged of embezzling funds as the chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority (also a regulatory body). Only time will tell what worse news we should expect.
436 northerners conveyed in about 40 buses were arrested earlier this week in Abia state for being suspected members of the dreaded Boko haram group. The news was received with joy at various sections of the country as it seemed like the country has started bracing its security even as a kingpin was said to be arrested. But the real truth is that this might just be the case of ethnic profiling in which people of a particular group/race are authomatically assumed to be the same.
This needs to be checked in order to forestall incidences of reprisal/genocide at its worst case scenario.

Many thanks to my motivation – My boo for inspiring me to write this column today.

Let me tell you a story about Myles Munroe, When he was age 16, he started speaking on Leadership and at age 17, the prime minister of his state called his mother’s phone and said “I’d Like to meet your son, Myles went ahead to see him. The prime minister said to him “Do you know you have more influence in my country than I do? Myles was shocked and embarrassed and he replied “ Mr Prime Minister, you are the president of this country, how can a 17years old boy be more powerful than you? And he said “Son you can bring together 5000people in a place without them smoking cigarette, take alcohol and they all gather to listen to you, I can never bring together5000 teenagers in my country, they will never listen to me, and they are the future of my country and you young man control the future of my country. Can you tell me your secret? Myles replied “ Sir I don’t know, I just gather them to tell them what happened in my life, I was in a family of 13, A father, A mother, and 11 children. I remember when I was sleeping on the floor with mosquito bitting me and roaches everywhere and my teacher in school told me “I’m ignorant, I can not learn
anything, Am retarded and am black, am not real
human and he is just wasting his time teaching me, I went to my mum and told her what the teacher told me and my mum said son never say that again and she gave me a book and in that book I learnt who I am and ten principles I needed to possess and that is what made me. My teacher told me blacks are monkeys and not human, and he said am a monkey.. After reading the book I went from F to A’s and was the best student in high school, I got an award and I gave it to the teacher who called me a Monkey, and i told him am a smart monkey, he was embarrassed and he said How did you do it?

NOTE: Don’t let anyone tell you who you are.
Every Human wants to succeed! No one decides
to fail, we all want to achieve. Do you know that your success is good For God? God needs you to succeed. Every manufacturer who makes a product wants the product to succeed. God design seed to be successful to bring forth tree. Seed into the soil and with water and sunlight help the seed to succeed. You need some principles to succeed!

WHAT ARE THE TEN PRINCIPLES?
1) PURPOSE: Purpose is the original
reason for the creation of a thing. E.g A bird was created by God to fly. If it doesn’t fly then it hasn’t fulfil its purpose. You were born to do
something very special, if you don’t find your gift and don’t discover what you are born to do, then- you have failed. You must discover your purpose. The reason behind your creation. Success is measured by what you are born to do. Your purpose is the ideas that keeps coming to your mind. Your purpose is what you complain alot and needs to be changed in your country. The same way a bird is trapped in flight, Your purpose is trapped in you.
DISCOVER YOUR PURPOSE.
2) PASSION: Passion is the desire
stronger than opposition, disappointment and death. A person with passion doesn’t need external motivation, A person with passion is someone who is willing to lose friends, sacrifice their pleasures, doesn’t need alarm clock to wake, A person with passion doesn’t get bored because life itself is really for living. Passion is when you discover your purpose for living.
3) PLANNING: Planning is writing your
dream in a piece of paper. If you don’t document
your dream you don’t want to achieve. Someone
asked “How do you know if your dream is the
right dream?” Here’s the answer, if your dream
only benefits you then its not from God, True
vision and true dreams always benefits others
around you. A young boy was asked “ What’s your dream” He replied “I have a dream to own a
10room apartment next to the beach, Travel all
around the world, eat whatever I want to eat..
That is not a vision, its a personal ambition. Get
a dream in your heart to help other people.
Don’t follow personal ambition. You must put your purpose and passion on Paper.
4) PRINCIPLES: You must live by
principles if you are going to be successful. What are the principles? LAWS! You must live by
principle to protect your purpose. For example,
Myles Munroe lived in a neighbourhood where
people smoke cigarette, marijuana and take all
sort of alcohols, he never snuffed a marijuana
leaf, or drink alcohol or smoke cigarette. When
they offer him these things, he remembered he
wrote his dreams on paper. He knows when he
smoke its gonna hurt his liver, and he is gonna lose his dream. A young girl wants to have sex with him, it sounds good, but he remember he wrote his dreams on paper and when he sleep with her and she gets pregnant, He would be forced to marry her. So he told her, i can’t sleep with you, my dream is more important than Sex. Principles are what you painfully decides and you are not violating.
5) PEOPLE: If you want to be
successful, you must choose the right people to be in your life. Some of you have friends before
reading this, if you read well, you will change your friend after reading this. Who is a friend? A friend is anyone who can help you fulfil your
dreams, who can take you to your destiny, who can help you achieve your vision. If you have a friend who can’t help you to achieve your vision, or can’t take you to your destiny or can’t help you to fulfil your dream is NOT a friend. If your friend tells you, let’s go drink alcohols, he is not a friend, they only want to cancel your dream, You must tell your friends, I read this article and I made some changes and one of the changes I made was YOU. Check your friends out. If you are the smartest amongst your friend, you have to change the group, you need to be among people that can make you grow, ask you question and help you think bigger. You can outgrow your friend. People who are doing
nothing wants you to do it them. People who are
going nowhere wants you to go with them. I want
you to tell them GOODBYE. Your future is
determined by the friends you keep. You cannot
choose your brothers and sisters but you can
choose your friends. Friends are more important
than brothers and sisters. King Solomon said
brothers and sister are for adversity but friends would love you at all times. Don’t be with people who don’t believe your vision. You can be the next president of this country but someone would want you to smoke, drink alcohol have sex and destroy your dream. Protect your dream from people who would destroy it. People can either help you or hurt you. There are 4 types of people
– Multipliers: Those who multiply to your dream
– Substracters: Those who distract you and
substract from your dream.
-Dividers: Those who divide from you and confuse
you.
-Additions: Those who add to your dream
I am here to multiply to your dreams… Am a good
friend!
A book can be the best friend in your life. Books
are good people. Lock the door, turn off the T.V
and speak to a friend through the pages of a book. Stop wasting time and read books. They can keep friend with you. The Eagle is the most successful bird in the world. Eagles fly alone, they dont fly with any other birds. If you are going to be a successful young man, stay away from the crowd, scare away from the gang.
6) PERSISTENCE: You insist on getting
what you dream, you lost everything, people left
you, people disappointed you but never lost your
dream. Persistence is when you decide no matter
what happens am coming back.
7) PATIENCE: No one is successful in a
day/year. Patience is postponing the fulfilment of pleasures. Patience is not complaining, patience is working while you are waiting, Patience is preparing yourself for which you are preparing to recieve. My friend asked me (Myles Munroe) what you going to do after high school, i said i want to go to college,He said he wants to go and work in the gas station and in 4years he will have more money. I knew i didn’t have money but i was patience, My elder sister saw my dream on paper and gave me all the money that she saved for her house and I used the money to go to school, I knew I needed a scholarship and I studied to get a 4.0. your problem is not money, start somewhere. Good news: My company is one of the largest and my sister is the administrative assistant. Do you know who pays her salary? Her younger brother, Do you know who is my financial director?, Her
husband. Do you know who is the director of
multimedia liveshow, Her daughter. She never
knew she gave that money to her boss. Be nice to
someone today.
8) PERSEVERANCE: Perseverance is
gettting up after you fall down. Every successful person is a result of getting back up. If you lose all your money, all your friends, Get back up. Never trust a person who hasn’t survived anything. A hard hands is what you pay to set your people free. Imagine the life of Nelson Mandela. You will never be accepted until you are being totally rejected. When you talk you learn what you know, when you listen you learn what the other man knows, when you are in the midst of great people, Don’t talk, but ask questions. Stop trying to make an easy life, do what is right all the time.
9) POSTERITY: The next generation. If
you are going to be a successful man/woman,
success is measured by what you do for others. Is your dream big enough for the unborn to enjoy it? Think about your dreams, can you transfer what you are doing to the next generation. Success always think of posterity.
10) PRAYER: It is the most important
one. Prayer is daily consulting the one who gave you number one (PURPOSE). God is important, no one knows a product like the manufacturer. You must spend time with him more than anybody else. When you are reading, stop and talk to the manufacturer, when you are driving, talk to him and sometimes don’t talk, Just listen!

Note: Do not seek success, seek to become a
person of value. Make yourself valuable by
discovering your gift and your dream. Your gift
would attract people to you. You were not born for yourself, you were born for us. Do you know that the cemetery is the wealthiest place on earth. Why? Because there in the cemetry are books that were never written, in the grave yard, there are music that were never heard, there are poetry that were never being read, In the cemetry we have dreams that died as night mares. In the graveyard there are schools that never opened, In the grave yard, there are great men who died as alcoholics, In the grave yard there are great women who died as prostitute and drug addicts. The grave yard is so wealthy. It is that same grave yard that made me write this, because I don’t want the grave yard to get an awesome treasure. I wrote this to tell you, Don’t take your dreams, your books, your vision, your ideas to the cemetery. I wrote this to help you die empty. I wrote this because I want you to disappoint the cemetery. I want you to die like a man that said “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. SEE YOU AT THE TOP.

– This Principles were taught by Myles Munroe at L.E.A.R.N “Time out with the youth” at LTV 27th October, 2013.

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1. Accept that you can’t please everybody, and then decide which select few opinions and feelings you value enough to try and satisfy.

2. Recognize that the grass always seems greener on the other side. Perhaps the grass you’re standing on just needs a little watering — it’s not necessarily where you’re at, so much as what you do there.

3. Don’t spend too much time on Instagram trying to decide if Hudson or Amaro is the more aesthetically pleasing effect on your picture.

4. Enjoy your journeys. Many times, the trip there is more gratifying than the arrival.

5. Make certain that you have some real friends who will tell you if you’re screwing up, regardless of whether you want to hear or not. “Yes men” will have you believing your sh-t don’t stink, but rest assured — it does.

7. Live as if you’re not going to make it to thirty. Too often we dread the big 3-0 instead of being grateful for the days we have now, and recognizing how fortunate we’d be to make it that far into the future.

8. If you get a text out of the blue that reads something along the lines of, “Hey, it’s been a long time” during the month of February, don’t answer. He/She just wants a Valentine.

9. Don’t expect people to always love or treat you in the same proportion as you do to them. Never be disappointed when this happens.

10. Don’t confuse the people who are often present with the people who are always there.

11. Make a legitimate effort to have too good of a time today to worry about tomorrow.

12. Remember that the answer to every question you don’t ask is ‘no,’ and start asking more often — no matter the context.

13. If your cable/satellite bill is #2000 away from being a car payment, get the basic package. You don’t need that many channels. Take advantage of Hulu, Netflix, and illegal downloading.

14. Skip Black Friday, take advantage of Cyber Monday.

15. Try to keep in mind that while all good things must come to an end, so must the bad.

16. When eating finger foods, use the hell out of your dipping sauce, and don’t be bashful. It’s much better to be out of BBQ sauce and have chicken nuggets than vice versa.

17. Whether it’s big or small, always have something to look forward to. It’s essential to help you get through things.

18. As the world didn’t end in 2012, make plans to kill it in subsequent years.

19. Buy sunglasses, Tylenol and Gatorade in advance when you know you’re going to get hammered.

20. If you have to contact a girl/guy first every-single-time, take the hint, cut the ties and keep it moving.

21. If you have to eat Top Ramen for monetary purposes, do so with the genuine belief that finances and cuisine quality will improve.

22. If you don’t have to eat Top Ramen, do it anyway to keep yourself humbled.

23. Spend more money on experiences and less on material things. (e.g. trip to Calabar Carnival takes precedence over new iPod.)

24. When you go to Vegas, take a minimum of three years off of your life with your actions.

26. Avoid physical altercations at all costs. We’re too old for fighting — use your words. This isn’t grade school where rasslin’ got you sent to the principal’s office, you risk going to jail or worse.

27. Learn how to grocery shop if you want to be a real grown up. Only some store-brand products are acceptable to purchase — cheese isn’t one of them.

28. Lay off the current generation of teens. Yeah, they do a lot of annoying, preposterous, ridiculous sh-t, but so did we at that age.

30. Always listen and ruminate, but never make important decisions based off of advice from someone who isn’t going to have to face the consequences.

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Do not hesitate to leave your opinion in the
comment section below.
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to damilolacole@gmail.com

I am not cursing you; I am wishing you what I wish myself every year. I therefore repeat, may you have a hard time this year, may there be plenty of troubles for you this year! If you are not so sure what you should say back, why not just say, ‘Same to you’? I ask for no more. Our successes are conditioned by the amount of risk we are ready to take. Earlier on today I visited a local farmer about three miles from where I live. He could not have been more than fifty-five, but he said he was already too old to farm vigorously. He still suffered, he said, from the physical energy he displayed as a farmer in his younger days. Around his hut were two pepper bushes. There were cocoyams growing round him. There were snail shells which had given him meat. There must have been more around the banana trees I saw. He hardly ever went to town to buy things. He was self-sufficient. The car or the bus, the television or the telephone, the newspaper, Vietnam or Red China were nothing to him. He had no
ambitions whatsoever, he told me. I am not sure if you are already envious of him, but were we all to revert to such a life, we would be practically driven back to cave dwelling.
On the other hand, try to put yourself into the position of the Russian or the America astronaut. Any moment now the count, 3, 2, 1, is going to go, and you are going to be shot into the atmosphere and soon you will be whirling round our earth at the speed of six miles per second. If you get so fired into the atmosphere and you forget what to do to ensure return to earth, one of the things that might happen to you is that you could become forever satellite, going round the earth until you die of starvation and even then your body would continue the gyration!
When, therefore, you are being dressed up and padded to be shot into the sky, you know only too well that you are going on the roughest road man had ever trodden. The Americans and Russians who have gone were armed with the great belief that they would
come back. But I cannot believe that they did not have some slight foreboding on the contingency of their non-return. It is their courage for going inspite of these apprehensions that makes the world hail them so loudly today.
The big fish is never caught in shallow waters. You have to go into the open sea for it. The biggest businessmen make decisions with lighting speed and carry them out with equal celerity. They do not dare delay or dally. Time would pass them by if they did. The biggest successes are preceded by the greatest of heart-burnings. You should read the stories of the bomber pilots of World War II. The Russian pilot, the German pilot, the American or the British pilot suffered exactly the same physical and mental tension the night before a raid on enemy territory.
There were no alternative routes for those who most genuinely believed in victory for their side.
You cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs, throughout the world, there is no paean without pain. Jawaharlal Nehru has put it so well. I am paraphrasing him. He wants to meet his troubles in a frontal attack. He wants to see himself tossed into the aperture between the two horns of the bull. Being there, he determines he is going to win and, therefore, such a fight requires all his faculties. When my sisters and I were young and we slept on our small mats round our mother, she always woke up at 6a.m. for morning prayers. She always said prayers on our behalf but always ended with something like
this: ‘May we not enter into any dangers or get into any difficulties this day.’ It took me almost thirty years to dislodge the canker-worm in our mother’s sentiments. I found, by hard experience, that all that is noble and laudable was to be achieved only through difficulties and trials and tears and dangers. There are no other roads. If I was born into a royal family and should one day become a constitutional king, I am inclined to think I should go crazy. How could I, from day to day, go on smiling and nodding approval at somebody else’s successes for an entire lifetime? When Edward the Eighth (now Duke of Windsor) was a young, sprightly
Prince of Wales, he went to Canada and shook so many hands that his right arm nearly got pulled out of its socket. It went into a sling and he shook hands thenceforth with his left hand. It would appear he was trying his utmost to make a serious job out of downright sinecurism.
Life, if it is going to be abundant, must have plenty of hills and vales. It must have plenty of sunshine and rough weather. It must be rich in obfuscation and perspicacity. It must be packed with days of danger and of apprehension. When I walk into the dry but certainly cool morning air of every January 1st, I wish myself plenty of tears and of laughter, plenty of happiness and unhappiness, plenty of failures and successes. Plenty of abuse and praise. It is impossible to win ultimately without a rich measure of intermixture in such a menu. Life would be worthless without the lot. We do
not achieve much in this country because we are all so scared of taking risks. We all want the smooth and well-paved roads. While the reason the Americans and others succeeded so well is that they took such great risks.
If, therefore, you are out in this New Year 1964, to win any target you have set for yourself, please accept my prayers and your elixir. May your road be rough!

– Tai Solarin (1922-1994) was one of Nigeria’s
foremost social activists his legacy includes the
famous Mayflower School, Ikenne and Mollusi College Ijebu-Ode. This article was published in Daily Times Newspaper of January 1st, 1964.

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Do not hesitate to leave your opinion in the
comment section below.
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